Sacramento jail’s after-hours releases leave people without support | Opinion

Once a month, from 6 p.m. to midnight, volunteers gather on the sidewalk outside the Sacramento County Main Jail for a jail support program. They bring resource guides, food, coffee, bus passes, hygiene kits, clothing and their presence.

Lately, that sidewalk has become more than a space for support; it has become a site of resistance.

Every night, outside the jail, people are released into the dark — often with no phone or place to go, just a heavy door closing behind them and a system eager to wash its hands of responsibility.

The Sacramento Sheriff’s office claims that most releases happen “during business hours.” But in reality, release times are unpredictable. Families wait for hours on cold concrete ledges, eyes fixed on the jail doors, while loved ones remain trapped in processing — sometimes six hours or more after release is approved. Many family members travel from distant cities, uncertain when or if they will be reunited.

With over 3,300 people in the Sacramento County jails and around 80% held pretrial, most people released have not been convicted of a crime and many are required to attend court hearings and comply with conditions like check-ins or drug testing. Late-night releases without support make it more difficult to meet these conditions. Just one missed court date or check-in can result in a technical violation leading to re-arrest and deeper entanglement in the legal system.

These releases also risk lasting harm through medical crises, missed shelter and reentry services, job loss and childcare disruptions.

One volunteer, Barbara Ramm, pressed the county Board of Supervisors about late-night releases and then conducted her own audit. Over 24 hours, she and fellow volunteers tallied and offered support to 71 individuals released. Contrary to claims that late releases are rare exceptions, nearly half happened outside business hours.

They surveyed 58 people about services they received. The Sheriff’s Office asserts that every person gets a resource guide, phone call, charger, bus pass, clothing and 30 days of prescriptions. What volunteers say they witnessed was starkly different: Only four received a resource guide, despite 12 reporting being unhoused, and only one individual accessed the clothing closet. Two received bus passes, and five people received prescribed medications, while three others were denied medication after asking. Sixteen were allowed a phone call, but no one was allowed to charge their phones.

Shortly after, the survey was presented to the Board of Supervisors. And Ramm’s efforts did not go unnoticed.

On Aug. 27, as volunteers began their jail support shift, Sheriff Jim Cooper appeared with uniformed deputies and ordered the volunteers to move, accusing them of trespassing. When asked for clarification, he said: “I’m the boss, and I’m not going to argue about this.”

Their effort to fill the gap that the county denied existed was treated as a nuisance. Though confident they were not breaking any laws, volunteers chose to avoid escalation by relocating across the street and continuing the much-needed support.

But Cooper’s failures are not just about inadequate support. Often, the harm is overtly violent: Last fall, a 71-year-old woman experiencing a mental health crisis was released near midnight. Outside those same jail doors, she was violently shoved to the ground by a deputy, according to a citizen’s complaint filed by Mark Merin, the woman’s lawyer. Merin told The Bee that the woman, Ourania Thimmhardy, suffered a fractured femur and months of hospitalization. Other deputies reportedly stood by, some even laughing.

In another case, a man in visible medical distress died in custody. A lawyer’s report detailed how deputies “grabbed him by the hair to take his intake photo” and forced his limp hand onto a fingerprint scanner after he collapsed. His inability to stand was dismissed as “playing games.” He died an hour later.

The Sacramento County Jail operates under a consent decree following the Mays v. County of Sacramento lawsuit, with court-appointed monitors overseeing the facility. Last August, one monitor described a culture within the Sheriff’s Office marked by “callousness, apathy and an unacceptable tolerance for human suffering.” Despite this, the county continues to raise the sheriff’s budget each year, while cutting funding to programs that promote public health and community care.

Jail support from volunteers like Ramm stands as a refusal of the culture of callous indifference and as a reminder that care exists in our community.

AJ Albano is an organizer with Decarcerate Sacramento and the Sacramento Ticket Defense Clinic. He has a background in police misconduct investigations, survivor advocacy and legal support for self-represented litigants. Frances Lu is an organizer with Decarcerate Sacramento. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego, and currently works as a manager at the California Department of Social Services.